Fishing with Live Bait

There are a lot of myths that surround using live bait as opposed to artificial and most of them are not true. Live bait is still used by many fishermen. The one factual part of live bait, which nobody can argue upon, is that its often messy, and it smells awful. If you can overcome these two factors, you will be in good shape to try live bait on your next fishing trip.

There are some basic principles that you should not ignore when using live bait. None of the principles concerning live bait are clean or nice, but they are necessary. You should never handle live bait when your hands are dry. Bait has a slimy layer on the outside, which is protective as well as inviting to predators, and if your hands are dry you will risk removing that layer.

If you are running low on live bait, try to save the bait that dies in your live well or in another bucket. When your live bait has run out, you will still be able to use the freshly dead bait. All you have to do is cast your line and bob it a little to give the appearance that your bait has some life left in it. Be careful of the weight that you put on a line with live bait. Fish will spot a weight if it is too heavy and weighing down the bait. Your weight or sinker should be light enough to give the bait the appearance of free floating in the water.

Seasonal fishing can change the perspective on live bait. For example, during the summer can be brutal. You may need to adjust your way of thinking and practices when the summer comes along. Keeping the bait alive will be the hardest thing for any angler in the summer. So in order to keep your bait living, you will need to change the water on a regular basis so that the bait has constant oxygen. However, you can’t just stop at changing the water.

The temperature of the water is critical because the water on the surface is hot and deadly for live bait. Therefore, having ice on hand to put into the live well would be the best way of keeping your live bait happy until they reach the hook. You will save yourself a lot of grief if you call the bait shop the night before to ensure that the bait you want is available and fresh.

Some other tips you should keep in mind when fishing with live bait is to never hook your live bait in the eyes. The reason is that you want the bait to see the fish approach them because they will become more excited and it will cause the fish to grab on better. Another thing is that you should add water softener salt to the water that is holding your live bait. The salt will make the scales of your bait harder while instantaneously preserving the slimy coat that attracts predators.

Reason and logic will tell you that a fish would be more attracted to real food as opposed to artificial food. Lastly, live bait does increase the workload so make sure you are prepared to deal with the entire package before committing yourself to fishing with live bait.

Gone fishin'